SIGGRAPH Asia 2013 Releases Final Content with a Focus on Business,
Film-making and Art

Hong Kong – Hong Kong once again plays host
to one of the most important events for the international computer
graphics and interactive techniques community, SIGGRAPH Asia 2013,
taking place from 19 to 22 November 2013 at Hong Kong Convention
and Exhibition Centre. Now in its sixth year, SIGGRAPH Asia 2013 is
both a conference and trade exhibition that attracts attendees from
all over the world and invites them to enter the arena of
creativity, innovation, education and technology, and leave them
inspired.

Discuss the industry’s direction at the inaugural
Business Symposium

New at SIGGRAPH Asia 2013, the Business Symposium will spark an
interactive dialogue between stakeholders in the content creation
industries. Spanning one full day, attendees will be able to focus
on interesting and topical issues occurring in the industry. The
Business Symposium will be split into three segments; Hito, Mono
and Kane.

The first of these segments, Hito, recognizes that the most
important asset and resource of the industry are its people and
looks at how to get the best out of them. Specially selected
Symposium speakers and panelists will discuss the needs of the
industry and how they can be met through schools, educational
programs and enterprises.

Continuing with the subject of people, Mono explores the ways
that people are reaching out to the market, and ways that content
creation must adapt to constantly evolving market trends. Finally,
Kane will sum up the Business Symposium by examining how the
initiatives looked at in Hito and Mono could be funded by either
corporate or government financial schemes.

Each part of the Business Symposium features experts and opinion
leaders as speakers, including Shuzo Shiota, the curator of the
Symposium and President and CEO of Polygon Pictures Inc., Sen Lai,
Principal and CEO of 3dsense Media School, and Richard Chuang,
founder and CEO of Cloudpic Global.

The Business Symposium is not the only way attendees can gain
insight into the mechanisms of the computer graphics and
interactive techniques industry. The business focus of SIGGRAPH
Asia 2013 is further complemented through the Exhibitor Sessions
& Talks. Held from 19 to 22 November, the Exhibitor Talks and
Sessions will give attendees the opportunity to experience hands-on
presentations and learn all about new developments in product
innovation.

Some of the highlights from this program include talks from
Side Effects Software. Their talk, entitled
Houdini and the Houdini Engine, will explore how Houdini
can be applied across various fields, from feature film visual
effects to procedural game art to impressive and effective
commercials. Side Effects Software will also
showcase the new Houdini Engine that allows for integration of its
technology into a wide range of digital content creation apps,
including the upcoming experimental plug-ins for Autodesk Maya and
the Unity game engine.

Another technological advancement that has enjoyed recent
success will be discussed in Stratasys’
talk, 3D Printing – The Future is Now. Following 3D
printing’s recent transitioninto the mainstream, the trends
of 3D printing in areas such as mass customization, rapid
prototyping and direct digital manufacturing will be explored,
demonstrating how the process helps drive innovation and business
value in Asia.

In what will undoubtedly prove one of the most popular talks of
the entire event, PIXAR Animation Studios will
reveal how their latest feature film, Monsters University,
delivered new levels of visual sophistication. Learn how RenderMan
Studio 18’s lighting and shading tools made that possible as
part of the Monstrous Advancements in CGI: RenderMan Studio
18 talk. This session also features a special screening of
The Blue Umbrella, which features these new techniques of
photorealistic lighting, shading and compositing.

Monsters University

For those attendees that want to speak directly to exhibitors
and other professionals, as well as understand more of the general
computer graphics industry in the region, the Hong Kong ACM
SIGGRAPH Professional Chapter will host a networking event
that also gives a comprehensive overview with presentations on
computer graphics in advertising, 3D productions and feature
animation films.

Celebrate the best of computer-generated animation with
the Computer Animation Festival

The SIGGRAPH Asia Computer Animation Festival is a hugely
popular program that gives attendees the chance to acquaint
themselves with a myriad of computer-generated animation clips and
visual effects. This year the Computer Animation Festival received
a total of 506 submissions from 51 countries. Of these, the top
three submissions have been hand-picked by the jury and will be
awarded ‘Best of Show’, ‘Jury Award’ and
‘Best Student Project Award’.

The prestigious ‘Best of Show Award’ goes to 5
Meters 80, a film by Nicolas Deveaux and produced by French
production house Cube Creative Productions. The film follows a herd
of giraffes that decide to embark on a series of adventurous
high-flying acrobatics, with humorous effect. It was selected for
its incredible use of CGI, which, combined with excellent animation
creates genuine affection and emotion.

‘Best of Show Award’ - 5 Meters
80

Nadia Micault’s film, Sonata, made in
collaboration with another French production company, Autour de
Minuit Productions, won over the jury to win the ‘Jury
Award’. Set in an imaginary musical world that seamlessly
marries artistic movement and expressive emotions, the film
revolves around the story of a young woman who wishes to escape and
in order to do so must open up and reinvent herself.

‘Jury Award’ - Sonata

Bringing the awards to a close is Wedding Cake,
directed by Viola Baier and produced by Germany’s
Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg. Awarded ‘Best Student
Project’ for 2013, Wedding Cake strikes the perfect
balance between storytelling and visual image rendering, as its two
main characters, marzipan figures from the top of a wedding cake,
try to sculpt the perfect wedding out of icing.

‘Best Student Project’ for 2013 - Wedding
Cake

Industrial Light & Magic, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd., will
also host two panel sessions discussing recent films that they have
been a part of, one of which is Pacific Rim, Guillermo del
Toro’s science fiction epic that demanded an incredibly
wide-ranging scope of visual effects, from aliens to human-piloted
robots.

Internationally acclaimed animation studios share their
expertise in the Featured Sessions program

Inspiration is in the air at SIGGRAPH Asia 2013, particularly
with the Featured Sessions program, which features internationally
acclaimed animation and visual effects studios. PIXAR
Animation Studios, Image Engine and
MPC will each share the expertise, art and
techniques that lie behind the creation of some of this
year’s most highly anticipated films.

Learn from the best with PIXAR’s Director
of Stereo Production, Joshua Hollander, who will use a colorful
slideshow and clips from various Pixar films to illustrate his
session, Stereoscopic Pixar – Three Eyes, Three
Dimensions, presenting an overview of the technical and
production processes behind the studio’s stereoscopic
releases, as well as delving into their creative philosophy.

Image Engine, known for providing the visual
effects for Neill Blomkamp’s sci-fi epic, Elysium,
will examine the techniques that they used in Inside Elysium:
From Earth to the Ring. Peter Muyzers, the studio’s
Visual Effects supervisor will lead a discussion around the
challenges involved in creating two polarized worlds, with a
particular focus on several artistic and technical trials in
creating specific elements of the movie.

Inside Elysium: From Earth to the
Ring

The third and final session, MPC’s
From Previs to Pyramids, MPC Presents the VFX of World War
Z, looks at the creative and technical processes behind the
visual effects of World War Z, demonstrating how the team
took early concepts through to completion on what was their most
challenging project to date.

World War Z

Experience innovative artworks in the Art
Gallery

To further complement the conference sessions, interactive
technologies, technologically-centric installations and
performances, SIGGRAPH Asia’s Art Gallery invites artists
from around the world to showcase their innovative and cutting-edge
contributions to digital aesthetics in a world where science,
technology and art combine. The theme for the exhibits this year is
Future/Past, allowing artists to create stunning visual and sound
works, augmented-reality (AR) installations and performances that
attendees can interact and engage with. For the first time ever
this year, the Art Gallery is supported by Art Papers; academic
papers that highlight theoretical issues concerning contemporary
art in our global society.

One of the Art Gallery’s major highlights, that will be
open to all members of the public, is The Virtuale
Exhibition. Presented in collaboration with Digital Art Weeks
International, The Virtuale Exhibition is an exhibition of
AR artworks that use new digital tools to both view and interact
with the art. Curated by Arthur Clay from ETHZ in Switzerland, the
exhibition takes AR artworks and focuses on the use of public
space, mobile technologies and the way that people engage with art
on a public sphere. 11 pieces of art have been installed in and
around Hong Kong in places such as Victoria Peak and Hong Kong
Park.

About SIGGRAPH Asia 2013

The 6th
ACM SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and
Interactive Techniques in Asia will take place in Hong Kong at the
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from 19 – 22 November
2013. This year, the line-up of conference programs will include an
Art Gallery, the Computer Animation Festival, Courses, Emerging
Technologies, Posters, a Symposium on Mobile Graphics and
Interactive Applications, Technical Briefs and Technical Papers.
There will also be a trade exhibition from 20 – 22 November 2013,
offering participants, ranging from hardware and software vendors
to studios and educational institutions, a platform to market their
products and services to computer graphics and interactive
techniques professionals and enthusiasts from Asia and beyond.